To Ignore, or Not to Ignore? That is the Question

By Daniel Taverne

While growing up, I can’t tell you how many times my mother told me to ignore something that was bothering me. In fact, I had enough things to complain about back then that I became quite skillful at pretending the things that were bothering me weren’t bothering me at all. Unfortunately, my mom failed to teach me two things: What to do when the situation can’t be ignored, and how to distinguish between situations that should be ignored from those that should not.

If you’re like me and your mom didn’t give you this knowledge either, I intend to help you out by sharing with you a few of the experiences that finally did teach me these important lessons. Ultimately, after reading this, my hope is that you become able to identify similar situations in your own life and avoid unpleasantness.

As an adult, one of the first items I remember utilizing my ignoring skills on was speed limit signs. However, I soon found out that this is one of those bothersome facts of life that must be heeded. Furthermore, I soon discovered, after ignoring a speed limit sign that it is even more undesirable to ignore flashing red and blue lights seen in my rear view mirror. The lesson here is, don’t ignore speed limit signs, and don’t ignore police cars that try to pull you over.

As an adult, I discovered a few other instances when it’s undesirable to ignore things after I got my first cat. It only took two days for me to realize that no matter what I do, I can’t ignore the smell of cat do-do. In fact, it was midnight on the second night when, sick of dry-heaving, I decided to drive to Wal Mart to purchase a litter box and cat litter. Soon afterward, I found myself successfully trying to ignore the scratching sounds coming from the laundry room where I put the litter box. What a mistake that was.

The next morning, after the scent of cat crap had me retching, I checked the litter box to found that the cat poop wasn’t covered with litter material at all, but was instead covered with shreds of flowered paper it ripped from the nearby wall. The lesson here, therefore, is when you hear your cat scratching on something, don’t ignore it, get up off your butt and see what its doing.

After getting married, as many men do, I learned how to tune out the voice of my wife as she talked about things like her mystery pains, the particular lady who cut her hair, the current episode of The Guiding Light, or what ever else I wasn’t interested in. In my mind I’d be listening to my movie on TV, but my head would be nodding to my wife. Shamefully, it was after my wife cut all the crotches out of my underwear, leaving me a note saying, you better start listening to me that I actually started to. You should have seen my wife laugh as I pulled that first pair of underwear all the way up to my arm pits.

Finally, I always thought I could ignore anything; that is until I became an adult. I have, therefore, become a more understanding person when my daughter comes home from school complaining that someone was messing with her. Instead of ignoring her by absently stating, “Ignore it”, I listen to what she has to say then I give her informed advice that makes much more sense.

To sum this all up, parents utilizing the stock phrase, “Ignore it.” could be doing their children a disservice if a situation actually merits attention. So instead of teaching your child ‘how’ to ignore, maybe what aught to be taught is ‘when’ to ignore.